Of Boredom and Irish Heritage
by Mad Madame Me
Summary: Boredom is a tragically wicked thing. A beast which preys upon the solitary with naught to do. When such beast strikes one Dark Lord Voldemort, love ensues.


Voldemort was bored.

Lying in wait while his Death Eaters served him was all very well, but it left little else to do but work on evil plots for world domination. Unfortunately, there is such a thing as Evil Plotter's Block.

And not even the Darkest of All Dark Lords can escape it.

After destroying the _fifth _spec of air that looked suspiciously like a fly, Voldemort shoved the sheaf of blank parchment away. Brandishing his wand like a sword, he incinerated the lot and shouted a furious curse to relieve the tension.

Of course, he'd done this sixteen times earlier today. And it had not managed to accomplish a thing.

Having exerted every other option, including picking the lint off his robes--twice--Voldemort attempted to amuse himself by sitting in his chair and looking fierce. This worked for, approximately, three seconds before he discovered that looking menacing in a high-backed chair is only entertaining when one has one's minions present.

And it appeared that he was a bit short of minions.

What to do? What to do? The question danced a sprightly jig around his brain until Voldemort could be quite certain he had gone insane.

At that moment, the theory proved correct when a melody popped up.

"This is ridiculous." He'd never even _been _to Canada. How in Salazar Slytherin's name did he know their national anthem!? (Dark Lords are not known for talking to themselves, but that is only because no one ever sees them do it.)

Desperate to find something to occupy his time and prevent further Canadian assaults, Voldemort set fire to the chair and stormed into his bedroom.

For a short time, he attempted to take a nap. However, when the sheep proved unmovable, he incinerated them as well.

The Dark Lord sulked. Unless you have seen a sulky Dark Lord sulking, you cannot possibly imagine what it looks like. In Voldemort's case, he'd only sulked five times in his life and, therefore, we must allow for a grand spectacle.

Perhaps he could read awhile?

He stalked to the bookcase, managing to create a far more intimidating aura than he had ever before achieved. The dust bunnies beneath his bed quivered.

A small, leather-bound volume peeked from behind the others. It, above the gold-trimmed Self-Help and Evil Curse books screaming for attention caught his eye. He yanked it out, sending Hex Your Problems Away and Help for the Bedwetting Child (which he had picked up by mistake) flying.

_**Riddle Family History**_

_A Compilation by Merope Riddle_

"By Salazar." Voldemort sneered at the detail his mother had put into researching her one-time husband's family. When had he acquired this anyway? He growled, moving to destroy it. "Muggle rubbish."

Something deep and dark, that Voldemort would not have recognized, stilled his hand. He looked back at the title. Well, the Hufflepuff-spawned Muggles _were _related to him. What harm could there be in a few minute's worth of reading? (What harm, indeed?)

In the end, only the ever-looming threat of the Canadian national anthem convinced Voldemort to open the cover. He poured over the pages, eyes scanning names as he panned through an extensive family tree.

His great-grandfather's name suddenly stood out. The book dropped from his hands. "Great Salazar defend me…"

O'Farrel.

"…I'm Irish."

A flash of plaid caught his eye. He glanced back at the offending volume, horrified to see a family tartan.

The dark, unfathomable feeling rose in his chest as he stared at it. Some people who are not quite so evil, might call it pride. A rather hideous (in his humble opinion, of course) pattern of browns, yellows, varying shades of green, and white.

"My family wore _this?_" Perhaps it was only the boredom that caused Voldemort to concentrate on such a blatant fashion error. Or perhaps it was the Canadian national anthem creeping into the far crevices of his mind like an irritating insect. Or, perhaps still, it was a strange connection with said ancestors.

The Dark Lord was not nearly so concerned with the style of his robes as he was with conquering the world. Or so he claimed. (Indeed, Voldemort held a guilty indulgence in lace cravats, but the world was never to know.) But, when all is said and done, an ugly family tartan is an ugly family tartan.

Still, it was his.

Unconsciously, Voldemort pointed his wand at a pillow on his bed. It flattened into a course material, twisting into what resembled a skirt. Colors streaked into a replica of the plaid pattern.

When he glanced at his creation, he yelped. The kilt dropped to the floor, lying carelessly beside the book that had stemmed all of this madness. Voldemort tried to hex it into oblivion, but couldn't bring himself to do it. Yet.

The former pillow fought great confusion. After all, it had been doing its job of residing on the Dark Lord's bed. What had it done to deserve this?

Voldemort stared at the kilt.

It stared back.

He narrowed his eyes. The bedroom was not big enough for both the Dark Lord _and _the Dark Kilt. Something had to change.

And it would change _now_.

Two hours later found him cured of boredom, and the doors to both bedroom and study blocked with destructive protection spells, ensuring extreme privacy.

Lord Voldemort, Dark Lord of the Wizarding World and ever-present threat to mankind, was performing a very bad rendition of Riverdance in the aforementioned Dark Kilt.

And not only was he dancing, he was singing. At the top of his lungs.

Anyone who had the misfortune of overhearing would later wonder if Voldemort, perhaps, had not downed one too many butterbeers. In truth, he had conjured at least sixteen steins of hard Irish whisky.

But that went unknown to the rest of the world.

Magnificently drunk, Voldemort pranced about the study, deciding in that moment it was his new lifelong dream to learn to play the bagpipes.

In this exact moment, an equally drunk Wormtail entered, wearing--for no apparent reason--a busty French maid's costume. For, it would seem, the blockading spells had worn off. He clapped gleefully at the spectacle and stumbled to join.

Not yet to the point of indifference, Voldemort paused to hex the sniveling, metal-handed Death Eater into oblivion. When next Wormtail woke, he would remember nothing of his encounter with the Dark Lord, but would be all-too aware of the outfit.

And he would, in that moment, swear by all he held dear to somehow avenge himself to Rodolphus and Rabastian Lestrange for getting him drunk in the first place. Too add to his misery, the Canadian national anthem--which had long since given up on lodging itself permanently in the Dark Lord's head, took advantage of Wormtail's hangover.

But that is another story entirely.

That settled, Voldemort resumed his dance and conjured a seventeenth stein of whisky as he belted out an off-key accompaniment to the drinking song he'd managed to compose.

The seventeenth became and eighteenth, which progressed consequently to a nineteenth and then a twentieth. Within five minutes, Voldemort had finished thirty-three-and-two-thirds steins of hard whisky, and was entirely too drunk to notice anything other than the fact that the floor was about to hit his face and that this would be bad because he was not finished dancing.

The door opened again, but the Dark Lord couldn't hear. And even if he had, he would not have cared. Voldemort beamed at the blurry figures. Raising a tankard to propose a toast and finish that last third, he shouted something incoherent. His guests were not to know it, but he had exclaimed. "To life, to life. L'chai-im!"

Then invited them to perform in a four-man, underwater rendition of _Uncle Vanya_.

Blinking, the three Death Eaters backed away. If he was too drunk to recognize them, then perhaps he would not remember this when he awoke with the Dark Lord of All Hangovers.

Bellatrix Lestrange pursed her lips. The thought of her beloved master doing what it appeared that he was doing made her want to run to the comforting arms of her husband. At least Rodolphus could be counted on to be a sane drunk. (Except, for a very strange reason, when in the presence of pineapples, in which case he would carry cheery conversations with them and insist that they floated.) "What is his _doing!?_"

"He's dancing...a jig." Severus Snape cleared his throat, as though he could not quite believe his eyes either.

A recently-liberated-from-Azkaban Lucius Malfoy gripped his snake cane until his knuckles turned white. "Let's get out of here and he might not kill us tomorrow."

They agreed unanimously and fled, but the sight of the Dark Lord dressed in full costume and performing an Irish toe-dance was worthy of the description 'scary beyond all reason'.

Soon after they fled, Voldemort collapsed in a heap of tartan and thirty-eighth stein of whisky. When he woke the next morning with a headache known only to the most severe of masochists, Severus, Lucius and Bellatrix ensured that they were as far away as possible. Nothing, not even Veritaserum, could force them to repeat what they'd seen.

In the meantime, the other lowly minions of Lord Voldemort learned exactly how short their master's temper could be, and that spiking his drinks would not--in fact--be a practical joke any of them intended to use in the near-distant future. Quite the contrary, they entered into an accord that very day to keep all forms of alcohol away from the Dark Lord at all times.

Many miles away, tucked away in the wilderness, Harry Potter awoke screaming. Rolling over, he retched as the image of Voldemort dancing and singing in a kilt seared into his mind for all eternity.

Ron and Hermione turned, eyes wide with concern. "Why'd you bloody wake up!?" Ron demanded at the same time Hermione asked:

"Harry, what is it?"

His voice cracked and left eye twitched. Oh, the horrors. "You don't want to know…"

Harry shook his head, suppressing the urge to cry out for his mother. Even Dementors could not inspire such fear in the Boy Who No Longer Wished to Live.

"For the love of Merlin, tell me it was just a dream."

Unfortunately, for Harry Potter, three other unfortunate souls could attest to the contrary.

* * *

A/N. No. I am not sorry for what I have just done to your mental retinas. A combination of late-night conversations with my sister, and a highly entertaining speculation with a good friend brought about this little bit of insanity.

Shamelessly stole from _The Tenth Kingdom_ for the Bedwetting Child bit and the Reduced Shakespeare Company for _Uncle Vanya_, but you know you liked it. (Also, credit goes to the ever brilliant Makani of .com for the floating pineapples.)

Do not be fooled. I love Canada. And their warship.

Also, I happen to like the O'Farrel tartan. Voldemort, however, does not. Particularly after waking up in it.

I am not J.K. Rowling and, frankly, I'm glad I'm not. It means I can more easily poke fun at Voldie.


End file.
